Thursday, December 16, 2010

Devastating news: smoking marijuana can unlock latent mental illnesses such as bipolar I & II and schizophrenia in young brains.Not news, really. I've suspected it since hearing the bipolar diagnosis from doctors in regard to some of my kids. On the Airtalk show on KPCC today, Larry Mantle interviewed Gil Kerlikowske, the "drug czar" of this administration, as well as interviewing a researcher and a psychiatrist specializing in addiction. Listen to it at: http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2010/12/16/teens-smoking-more-pot/Other facts from the study just released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse:Use of marijuana on a daily basis causes cognitive loss, especially in the ability to memorize and learn.9% of marijuana users become addicted.When it becomes a gateway drug, the most common drugs chosen are cocaine and methamphetamine--because they increase attention and focus.Larry recommends seeing the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Next to Normal, which shows two teens, one who can use mj recreationally without too many side effects and his girlfriend, for whom mj immediately becomes addicting and destructive to her life.

Featured Post

In memory of Martha Puebla & In honor of Maria Riveros

On a spring night in 2003, Martha Puebla, age 16, was shot in the face while sitting outside her home in Sun Valley, California, near Los Angeles. Her death was ordered by a gang member on trial for a murder she had witnessed.

On July 13, 2008, in San Ignacio, Paraguay, Maria Riveros took her pregnant 16-year-old daughter to the home of an obstetrician and asked her to perform an abortion. The fetus of about 4 mo. was buried outside the home, but there were complications and the next day Maria had to rush her daughter to a hospital, where a hysterectomy was performed. The obstetrician and her daughter, a nurse, were arrested and charged with performing an abortion.

This blog is dedicated to Martha, Maria and all women who courageously negotiate their lives in this world filled with gang warfare and international warfare, poverty and wealth, drug trafficking and addiction, and lack of access to birth control, legal abortion, and other health care.